This was a delightful blog! Thank you for a well-crafted, funny, but heart-felt recap.

I guess Chris's dinner doesn't seem so audacious to someone whose mother-in-law cooks pigs' feet in cabbage, tripe balls in tomato sauce (the tripe rolled around a stick), and pigeon pie. And goes out to harvest all the young dandelions in the yard for me to mix with other foraged herbs (nettles, linden leaves, ramps). I got the feeling I'd get tired of four courses of this fare, with nary a vegetable in sight. Especially with such a heavy final dish. If they came across as varied and not uniformly leaden, then I guess Chris really is a genius.

Krista - I love your creativity in using the letters to describe the food in the episode and to sum up the season.  Thanks for this blog entry!

With all due respect, I will not watch another cooking show that is judged by critics.  I know that you critics have sophisticated palates and need to have your palates challenged to show how sophiticated you are, but I just don't enjoy watching that or the results of that kind of judging.  The judging of the finale of this show was all about the critics and not about which chef made the most delicious food, which is sad.  I did enjoy watching you on the show this year, but not your judging criteria.  Best wishes.